Tears in my eyes as I write this. Its so touching, so beautiful and yet, doomed to failure.

I see them in the distance, a couple, late 20’s, beach people, holding each other, middle of the block.

Its a lovely scene.

And then I get closer.

And I see their shirts.

“Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf” (Think Capulet)

“Starbucks” (See also Montague.)

Barristas from opposing houses.

Doomed to a love that is forbidden.

I pass them and they are silent, no doubt the pain of their situation has driven them to silence.

Or, he was talking dirty and didn’t want me to hear, either one.

Eventually, as the story goes, the manager of Starbucks will find out and threaten to fire the barrista, and then someone get killed in a duel and then some of your better catch phrases happen.

“A plague on BOTH your lattes!”

And then, in the end, She will quit her job, planning to apply at Starbucks to be with him.

But, he doesn’t know that, so he will quit his job, thinking to work at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

So he is heading up the street to Coffee bean, and she is heading down the street to Starbucks.

And then they see each other, and they both realize what happened.

BUT THAT IS NOT THE DEATH SCENE!

That happens when they go across the street and get jobs at Peets Coffee.

A seedy little coffee house of ill repute, inhabited by questionable reprobates like soccer moms and real estate agents.

THIS IS THE SUICIDE SCENE!

Yup, working at Peets is pure resume suicide.

No one in the history of the world has EVER read a resume and said, “Oh, you worked at Peets coffee, great!”

Its a resume stain for the service industry much like a dose of the clap, but harder to get rid of.

And I still cannot prove that their coffee is not heavily tea-bagged in the back room. (There is this flavor in the coffee, you know?)

So what is the moral of this tragic tale?

There are several.

Peets Coffee is made by seedy unsupervised perverts.

Starbucks and Coffee Bean coffees do NOT have plague virus in them. (Shout out to their lawyers. Please don’t hur my family.)

When you are dealing with insomnia, haven’t slept more than 4 hours in 3 days and decide to watch the 1996 version of Romeo & Juliet (Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes), do not, repeat, DO NOT, write a blog in the wee hours of the morning.

Its like a unicorn being gang raped by a leprechaun and Santa Claus, and they all have winning lottery tickets

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

I don’t remember the last time there was Friday the 13th two months in a row.

I have had a few people tell me I am being superstitious and paranoid.

Hey, I don’t make the rules.

To paraphrase, Hate the game, not the scared player hiding under his bed.

There are those that say that Friday the 13th is just a day like any other day.

Yeah, and there are those that are against vaccinations too.

Perfect example, I got out of bed on Friday the 13th last month and immediately slammed my baby toe into the dresser.

Need I say more?

I can hear the doubters right now “That proves nothing. “

Fine, I’ll say more.

Not more than 5 minutes later, I got a papercut.

[Microphone drop.]

I NEVER get paper cuts, I have skin like a lizard.

If you still doubt me even in the face of empirical evidence, here is the final piece of proof.

I lost my car keys. LOST MY CAR KEYS! Are you bastards even listening?!?!

So for the second Friday in the 13th in a row? Screw it, I am not going out of the house today.

I have thought long and hard, employed rational thought, common sense and a little immigrant wisdom, and here is what I have come up with.

Drinking coffee and hiding under the bed.

Go ahead and laugh, but when the land around us is a charred pile of rubble, I will be probably still be hiding out, having coffee.

Will there be Starbucks in the wastelands of the future? Magic 8-ball says it seems likely.

God forbid I have to make my own, then I know we’re screwed.

Did the movie Mad Max teach us nothing?

For those not in the know, Mad Max was Mel Gibson’s first movie. (This was back before he became a misogynistic, anti-semitic, racist who evidently didn’t know that the red light is blinking when you are being recorded. See also Donald Sterling.)

And it was a low budget post apocalyptic car and violence fest set in Australia.

What did we learn from it?

First, without franchise coffee houses, the people descend into anarchy and join punk rock biker gangs.

Second, when the shit goes down, Australia is the last place you wanna be.

Although I hear Syndey is lovely in season.

Could the apocalypse be moved to Southern California?

The weather is better and there is a Starbucks on every corner.

It would make the wasteland much more pleasant.

So, that is what today is all about.

Hiding, drinking coffee and trying to figure out which post-apocalyptic coffee houses will have wifi.

Thank God for Keurig, the pod coffee machine.

It makes an acceptable cup.

Trust me, you don’t want my drip coffee.

If the coffee depends on me, I inadvertently make it strong enough to give a meth-head the shakes.

That is not enough of an ability to make me a warlord of the coming wasteland, but it does have me stockpiling Keurig.

To sum up, Coffee, nuclear holocaust, Australia, and support the troops.

We all on the same page now?

And, if you are stupid enough to go outside on Friday the 13th, despite all my warnings, don’t come running to me when all hell breaks loose.

If you are set upon by rabid dogs, gangs of Chicago children (Like a finishing school for murderers that place) or a Jehova witness stops you to force a copy of the Watchtower on you, you had it coming.

And if anyone is looking for me, I will be under the bed.

Nursing my coffee like a Canadian baby on a United Airlines flight. (Google it, people! Do I have to do everything for you?)

There are times I enjoy flying and times that I am in the 9th circle of hell, thinly disguised as United airlines.

And the reason is, there is an excellent chance that, at any given moment, you could be fucked with by the airlines, the government or other people, often without warning.

It begins subtly, you almost don’t notice it.

The car in front of you at the airport parking garage stalls as they are getting their ticket to raise the gate.

That takes minutes.

While this is going on, the next lane over admits 15+ vehicles and you don’t have the option of backing up.

You have just had your first slice of “Being fucked with” pie.

Save room, there’s more.

The airport is all about lines. The line at the elevator is more of a mob.

And if you have not been trapped in a metal box on a hot summer day, you are missing out.

Would it KILL people to bath and use some deodorant?

And someone either farted or shit themselves somewhere between the s2nd and 3rd floor.

I remember because it was right after the Chinese woman got on at the 3rd floor with what smelled like dead fish in her bag.

Finally, the doors opened and we began shuffling out.

And we are so conditioned to being contained and shuttled thru shoots, its a lot like being human cattle.

If the English ever invade and start rounding up the Irish to put into prison colonies, they can pull it off if they involve elevators. (And this is their vile plan, according to my great grandma. She told me after her nurse left the room. I was 5, still makes sense today.)

And then we get to the crosswalk.

The crosswalk is being manned by the most heavily armed crossing guard I have ever seen.

Here is the weird part.

The airport has its own police.

That makes perfect sense, we live in a dangerous world, and terrorists seem to have a hard on for The USA and airplanes.

But, and this is where my head stops in place, why would your entire police force be old fat guys?

I did a quick study on the hiring requirements to become an airport cop.

Its the same as regular cops.

Huh.

Anyway, I was waved across the street by a morbidly obese man with a gun and a belly the size of a yoga workout ball.

Inside the terminal, the fun and games continue.

The cattle lines are longer, the tempers are shorter and the base intelligence scores are dropping fast. Its a grim room here, people.

The woman in front of me is losing her fucking mind.

Evidently, her flight leaves in ten minutes.

She is on the phone, complaining to someone who gives a shit. (I know its not me)

Here is the situation:

It seems that she was going to leave for the airport an hour ahead of time. (The airport recommends getting here 2 hours ahead of time. )

But, the cats were being so playful. (Personally, I hate cats)

And traffic sucked. (This is Los Angeles, there isn’t a time when traffic DOESN’T suck.)

And there is a line. (This is an airport, you tard. Of course there is a line.)

Now, by my figuring, and I realize that my not having a degree in physics or higher math I could be wrong, but with 10 people in front of her, there is no way this chick is going to make her flight.

And evidently, this is my problem.

“This is ridiculous, right?” She has pulled the phone away from her head and is talking to me.

“I hate cats.” You may think that is a shitty thing for me to say. It is, but when she realized that I am not who she wants to look for agreement with, she turned her back and continued her phone conversation.

The really shitty thing to say was to stare at her back and, in a creepy monotone voice, tell the story of how I accidentally ate cat once in Mexico and ended up chasing a lying burrito vendor thru the alleys of Tiajuana with a couple of friends, trying to kick his ass for selling us cat.

The moral of the story is that cat is fairly delicious.

I know, it fucks with me too and its been 25 years.

Anyway, of the 3 agents at the counter, cat lady is at agent #1.

Agent #2 has an Asian couple in their 50’s that are pissed and have been there since I came thru the door.

And their problem is bags.

They have a lot of them.

United Airlines has a baggage policy that was written by either the Bavarian Illuminatus or expatriot Nazi’s.

!st checked bag ? $25. 2nd bag? $35. 3rd and on? $125 a piece.

Thats not a typo. $125

And the couple has a total of 14 bags.

And this is not an International flight, they are going to Portland.

Here is the cost breakdown.

They each get 1 $25 bag and 1 $35 bag. $120 spent and 4 bags down.
The remaining 10? $1250.

And I happen to know that round trip tickets to Portland are around $200.

And the couple’s logic is that if they keep yelling, eventually the airline will cave and ship their luggage for free.

Which will never happen, by the way.

The airlines will do everything but give away money.

They are just like us.

Mercenaries.

Nobody, with the exception of Mother Theresa, does what they do for a living out of love.

You do it for money or recognition.

I get that and have embraced it more than most.

I moved on from Mercenary to whore a long time ago.

Anything else that went on with the Asian couple was lost as I left agent #3 and headed to my gate.

1st table, right in the middle of a busy morning rush line, is The Player.

I am not sure who he is talking to based largely on his REALLY poor communication skills.

I thought he was talking to a friend about said “Wack Bitch”, and then, he made a comment about “You know what’s you done.” (Direct confusing quote there.)

I have no clue. (Then again, I don’t think I would be scooting that far out on a limb to say that The Player may not have a cache of clues squirreled away back at the house.)

Every now and then, I come across an example of humanity that really makes me dread the future of this country.

And I am fairly certain that hip hop is involved.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to listen to some of the most gritty, grungy, crappy music out there, but hip hop seems to have a rear-naked choke on raw intelligence that will not only end the fight, but the concept of intelligence itself may end up dead as a result.

The argument could be made that this is racist or class-derogatory or even as a reach, Moperic. (Google the word Mopery. Work with me here.)

If it sounds like I am being hard on the younger generation, please understand that its intentional.

Its not that I think they are dumb, far from it. (My own brilliant bloodlines excluded).

I KNOW the younger generation are dumb.

(Sidenote. I would use the crudish term “Tarded” here, but the sheer volume of hate email that follows takes hours to sort thru. And the incredibly poor grammar always gets nasty responses back from me, which only makes things worse. Shoot me, but for God’s sake, use a comma and look up the meaning of a double negative.)

I would worry about backlash from the younger generation, except that it is a well known fact that, unless accompanied by a pic, such as a 12-step affirmation printed on top of a low graphic photo on Facebook, they cannot read.

I would say that a formal declaration of war against ignorance has been made. My own particular brand of ignorance is hereby excluded.

Think of my perspective as the Geneva Convention of online blog wars except for the implied “Take no prisoners” clause.

As always, if any of this bothers you, feel free to write your own blog.

From a cathartic standpoint, this blog has always existed as a mental chamber pot that I routinely fill with the shit in my head, to be dumped out the window at random intervals, to land on the unsuspecting and the dumb.

I have written and deleted 4 different takes on the same subject and I can’t seem to finish the piece without it being the type of thing that would burn a lot of bridges.

Not just burn them, but nuke them, salt the earth, and leave it irradiated for eons.

Divorce, relationships, work, family, blogging…etc.

And some of these bridges I still need access to.

So, rather than let it go and forget about it, (Something I NEVER do.) I will just backburner the subject until I can do it without the “Scorched earth” result, or situations change and I no longer give a shit about the outcome. (And that is a dangerous frame of mind.)

So here is something different.

5 different reactions for the same thing.

The last blog post stirred up some “Stuff” for lack of a better word with a lot of you.

Since the preferred method of whining and bitching at me seems to be the anonymous email (You cowardly pieces of shit), I will address those first.

Response #1: First off, its ridiculous to declare yourself an “Ardent feminist” and claim you read the blog regularly. Either you are lying thru your teeth, mainly because no Feminist, ardent or not, would read this misogynistic swill without putting a hit out on me. Which means you are a wannabe ardent feminist. That is pathetic. Its like wanting to be known as the snappiest dresser in special ed. Bite me.

Response #2: You said in your email “While I am not a teacher” blah blah frickin blah. Therefore, you are not qualified to tell me what tense I am using, correct or otherwise. This is sadder than the wannabe ardent feminist issue. Your email was fairly grammatically correct and was as boring as cat shit on the sidewalk. Bite me.

Response #3: I am aware of the fact that Jesus loves me. However, if you are under the impression that the Almighty has an issue with this post or any previous posts, you are sadly mistaken. The Almighty not only gets me, he thinks I am a hysterical genius. One of his finer creations. (My mother said so.)

Response #4 Asking me to post something about your favorite charity tells me that you have so little respect for not just me, but anyone you send that poorly written email to, that you haven’t even taken the time to read the blog. If it doesn’t fit the subject matter or flavor of the blog, it will have the opposite effect of driving people away from your charity. Just showing it to people does not magically fix it. I was a salesman long enough to know that, with the proper presentation, you can sell anything to people. Especially ideas.

Response #5 My mother is right and I am deeply ashamed and sorry for scribbling this rubbish. Love you, mommy.

As time goes on, I have come to really enjoy and even look forward to the anonymous emails. Even if you are a pack of whiny pussies.